Above: A section of the document in question with the name "Judas" in Coptic letters.

I noticed this morning that my website was receiving a number of hits from Taipei, the capital in Taiwan. I followed the referring link to discover my article below discounting the Gospel of Judas was being discussed in a Taiwanese forum. See for yourself at http://ubb.frostyplace.com.tw/viewtopic.php?p=122664

Since I don't read Chinese, I couldn't follow any of it except for a post written in English by an individual named "fuigo." Here is what he said:

I don't know. This person seems a bit extreme.

I haven't checked out the National Geographic website, but on NY Times, it is mentioned that the so-called Gospal of Judas is a work done later in a different language in line with the culture and tradtition during that era. This person's sweeping claim that this Gospel of Judas is not a contender for a place in Scripture is not convincing. The fact that this document is not made old enough doesn't automatically mean there isn't one made earlier. I honestly do not understand the author's logic.

The author goes on and explains Gnosticism. He defined it as a cult; similarly, NY Times mentions Gnosticism as a group people who could escape the prisons of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came[sic]. As NY Time points out, Gnostics' beliefs are often considered by early church leaders as unorthodox or even denounced as heretics. I also do not see how this could immediately eliminate the validity of this piece of work.

Anyway, I am babbling. I would like to see more research done on this before I make any judgements.

I tried my best to create an account and reply directly in this forum, but despite my best guesses in dealing with the new account form, I never had any luck getting logged in. Too bad I don't read Chinese.

However, I was able to email fuigo. Here is what I wrote:

Maybe I wasn't clear in my argument. But the gospels as contained in the New Testament were eyewitness accounts of the life of Christ. This document is definitely later. We know this not just by the carbon dating--you are right, it could just be a later copy of an earlier work. But rather, the theological content is gnostic in nature and comes from at least a century later, if not probably more, than any of the eyewitness accounts in the New Testament. No one, and I mean no one--not even those who are excited about the Gospel of Judas--truly believe that there's anyway it could date from the first century. 

Gnosticism as described in the Gospel of Judas and in the Nag Hammadi codices simply didn't exist anywhere in the first century. It's not an eyewitness account, so it's not historical. It's the writings of a very small group of believers who broke away from orthodoxy. The fact that we have only one copy of the Gospel of Judas compared with tens of thousands of copies of accepted New Testament manuscripts demonstrate that the church did not value this writing as genuine. ALL New Testament writings were written in the first generation of Christianity by eyewitnesses to the events described. The Gospel of Judas, while interesting in the study of this gnostic sect, is of no value to New Testament studies.

I don't have time to do it right now, but perhaps this summer, there would be a need to blog about the process of selection and canonization of the New Testament manuscripts. In the meantime, I wholeheartedly recommend the book, The Canon of Scripture by F. F. Bruce. This is one of the best sources I know to go to regarding the origins of our New Testament.



Oh, and fuigo, thanks for labeling me "extreme" simply because I disagree with all the non-scholarly, sensationalistic hype surrounding an insignificant gnostic manuscript.

Tags: Gospel of Judas